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Shaping Your Attitude

Pulling off an all-cash Christmas in the face of a credit-aggressive retail industry is going to be like holding back the sea unless you arm yourself with a very important tool. You won’t have to run out and buy this tool, because I am absolutely sure you have it already. And you won’t have to go on a whole-house search to find it either. This all-important tool is as close to a magic wand as you will ever get and as powerful as you choose for it to be. It is your attitude.

Your attitude—the way you respond to everything in life—is more important than anything else as you set out to develop an all-cash Christmas. You choose your attitude, your thoughts, and the way you respond to everything that happens around you. How you celebrate and how you pay for the Christmas holidays are completely in your control if you make that choice.

Your attitude is like a child. It can be mature, well-behaved, and responsible, or it can be an out-of-control spoiled brat prone to loud demands and temper tantrums. You may know a little something about that. I know I do. Disciplining my attitude is a full-time job. Some days are easier than others. But consistent self-discipline in choosing my thoughts and what I allow myself to focus on does get easier, because my thinking becomes a habit.

You can choose a joyful, expectant, can-do attitude with bold determination, an attitude that says, “No matter what, I am not going to spend money I do not have to pay for Christmas. Period.” With that kind of attitude, even the powerful consumer-credit and retail industries will be no match for you. You will prevail. But if you fail to make that specific decision, you could easily default into debt, because let’s face it, buying everything on credit is a lot easier. Not thinking about prices and just spending your brains out with plastic are nearly effortless. What you must keep front and center in your mind is that while it may be easier for a moment, the struggle comes later in the crushing weight of debt.

The Joy and the Work

There are two distinct aspects of Christmas: what we feel and what we do. Both the feeling and the doing are important, and neither part should be denied.

On the one hand, there’s the joy of the season that touches our emotions and satisfies our souls. This is the part we feel, the part that evokes memories and binds families together. It’s the joy, the wonder—the miracle of the Christ child coming to earth to bring hope to a fallen world. This is the part of Christmas that we feel, the aspect that we approach with our hearts and feel in our spirits.

The other side of the season is the work. It’s the business, the planning, and the funding. This side of Christmas you must approach with your head—your good sense, your sound money principles, and your core values, which are grounded in your belief system.

Remember Ebenezer Scrooge of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol? Before his life-changing encounters with ghosts, it seemed he had no heart. His entire approach to Christmas was cerebral—not a single emotion could be found in his crusty, hardened self. Of course, that is not the proper approach to Christmas. But neither is an all-out emotional onslaught. There has to be balance. And the wise person knows how to move easily between the emotions and the business of Christmas.

That Important Separation

The more successful you are at separating these two aspects of Christmas, the more likely you will come through the holidays without creating debt. And the best “separator” is time.

It’s so much easier to set your holiday spending limit when you are not under the emotional spell of the season. You can think more clearly when you are not face-to-face with silver bells and boughs of holly. When you are not emotionally engaged in Christmas is a good time to make specific statements that reflect your chosen holiday attitudes.

Wait until the last minute to start thinking about this and it’s easy to get everything mixed up. Before you know it, you’ll get sucked into the mind-set that you have to spend a lot of money to create good memories so that everyone will be fully satisfied.

If Christmas is dangerously close as you read this, don’t assume you’re out of luck to make things different this year. Get away to a quiet place where you can think clearly. Then remember that it’s only too late if you don’t start now.

A Little Talking To

I know what it’s like to think that if we can just spend enough—if we can just get the biggest and best gifts for everyone on our lists—somehow we’ll be able to create the kind of joy our hearts crave. It’s easy to get caught up in that kind of thinking, but it’s not at all true. Approaching the business side of Christmas now while we can think clearly is just so much easier, financially safer, and more effective.

Separating the emotion from the business of Christmas will free you to create a plan and then stick to it—and also enjoy the warmth and wonder of the season to your soul’s content.

Here are the kinds of self-talk and personal affirmations you need handy as you formulate your attitudes. Write them on a card and keep them close so you can refer to them often. Of course, these are my suggestions; you may have others to add or substitute that are unique to you.

No one can force me to spend money I do not have in order to pay for Christmas. No one. If I feel pressure to do that and then cave in, it is my fault. I am the one who did the forcing.

The best memories and the most joy come from things money cannot buy.

I will spend my time well, investing myself in my children and others who mean the world to me.

I will keep one eye on December 26, when I intend to wake up knowing Christmas is paid in full.

It is good for children to yearn and to have pre-set boundaries when it comes to wish lists and desires.

Overindulging children is just plain wrong, so I will not do it. I will help them learn to limit their expectations rather than attempt to fulfill their every desire.

I am not a Christmas magician.

I will not work so hard during the month of December that Christmas turns into one crazy blur with “Just let this be over!” written all over it.

I will create my own agenda and not allow retail marketers to do it for me.

Debt Is a Choice

While the credit-card companies and retailers have come up with amazing marketing campaigns that border on mind control, so far they have not figured out how to force us to spend money we do not have. Going into debt is still a choice. And so is not going into debt by opting for an all-cash Christmas.

If your spending habits are nudging you into holiday debt, you don’t have to give in. You can experience a joyful season without mortgaging your future in order to feel good. Remember, it’s all a matter of attitude. You are in control.

It may seem completely ridiculous to think that just by changing your attitude you can change your circumstance, but it’s true. Disadvantages can be turned into advantages simply by the way you look at them. The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything.

Feelings and Actions

Here is a life principle that will help you understand and make meaningful attitude changes: It’s easier to act your way into a feeling than to feel your way into an action. If you change your attitude—not because you feel like it but because you know it is the right thing to do—your feelings will follow. On the other hand, if you wait until you “feel like it,” meaningful change may be delayed indefinitely.

It is dangerous to allow your life to be guided by feelings. Feelings are fickle—they cannot be trusted. Not only is it foolish to make choices and decisions by the “if it feels good do it” method, but it can also be costly.

And, of course, while we’d like to, it’s difficult to ignore the negative feelings of worry, stress, and disappointment; the fear of not doing everything well enough; the envy of those who do more and do it better; and the guilt of not measuring up, not giving the right gift, or not spending enough to even the score.

Christmas can be one overwhelming feeling after another. If we allow our spending to be controlled by our feelings, we’re in for a roller-coaster ride that carries a heavy price tag.

Stop allowing your attitudes to be shaped by those feelings brought on by the sights, sounds, and smells of Christmas; by shopping malls, magazines, neighbors, friends, family, or any other person, place, or thing. Instead, shape your attitudes about Christmas and debt in a reasoned and logical manner. You can take care of business and also fully enjoy and engage in the warmth and wonder of the season.

One Christmas many years ago, money was very tight. On Christmas Eve we took the kids out driving to look at the Christmas lights. On the way back we stopped in a five-and-dime variety store. We were having fun just looking and wandering through the aisles when I saw a little nativity set in a small box for eighty-nine cents. My husband offered to get it for me for Christmas, but I felt like there would be better uses for eighty-nine cents. We discussed it a bit, and he bought it. The same year my nine-year-old bought me a Santa candle.

I can’t explain why, but I remember vividly that Christmas and those two gifts more than any other. I keep that small nativity piece with Mary, Joseph, and the Christ child on display all year. Every time I see the nativity, I remember that there is something ephemeral about certain times and that money is not the central factor in those special memories.

The ensuing years have been filled with some good, some bad, some happy, some sad times; some financially desperate times; some times when money was in plentiful supply—but all have been sprinkled with unique and special little memories that stand out for reasons I can’t always explain.

When I stew and worry and lie awake at night worrying about money or other problems, it really helps to look at my nativity and remember that hope is found in a Person, not in my pocketbook.

Charlotte T., Kansas